What Feminism Is

Published: July 23, 2006

In fact, Pollitt argues from the capacious terrain of principle and history, where feminism is imbedded in, indeed inseparable from, a progressive legacy of social justice. Cox's assertion that feminism's task is to ''navigate between stridency and submission'' exposes the poverty of her social imagination and a meanness of spirit. Pollitt wants to amplify the conversation about the rights and wrongs of American society; Cox wants to reduce it to chit-chat about shoes.

Victoria de Grazia

Martha Howell

New York

Both writers are professors of history at Columbia University.

To the Editor:

Ana Marie Cox makes it clear that she just can't figure out why feminists like Katha Pollitt are still kicking up such a fuss. After all, Cox points out, Katie has the nightly news, Condi has State and Cox herself has ''elbowed my way into more boys' clubs than I care to remember.'' What else -- and who else -- could there possibly be? For Cox, the ability of women today to support abortion rights and at the same time wear Jimmy Choos constitutes a ''complicated feminist mind-set'' far beyond the grasp of Pollitt and her doddering sisters.

Dear Ms. Cox: If the boys will let you use the library, do a little research in the history of the women's movement. You'll find that complacency has a long tradition of its own, starting with those 19th-century homemakers who argued that women were perfectly well protected by their husbands and had no reason to want to vote. You'll also encounter the great tradition that brought us Katha Pollitt -- generations of smart, witty, articulate rabble- rousers who were always out in front taking the hits.

Laura Shapiro

New York

The writer is the author, most recently, of ''Something From the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America.''